Like many girls, Darlene's boyfriend got her started working as a prostitute. "On my fifteenth birthday, he was like, 'Well you know, since you'll be staying with me and stuff, we need more food. We need to find a way to get some money.'" Out on the street, he taught her how to act. "This is how you look at the guys," he'd say, "This is what you tell them, these are what cars to stay away from, this is how much you charged."
Darlene's boyfriend would be known as a "Romeo Pimp." There's another kind of trafficker: the Guerrilla Pimp. He uses overt force and fear to get his way. Oakland police estimate a third of girls working in prostitution were abducted and forced onto the streets. Brittney was one of them. "I got kidnapped when I was 15," she said. "I decided to cut school one day. I was in Oakland on Havenscourt and Foothill, and all I heard was 'man go get that girl,' and one of them came out and dragged me by my hair and he pulled me into the car."
Brittney says she was gang raped by at least six men. She was put on the street in Sacramento by one of them - a 32-year-old who became her pimp. He took her phone, told her not to talk to anyone but johns and had his sister watch her so she wouldn't run.
Alameda County Assistant District Attorney Sharmin Bock compares the girls' situation to being brainwashed by a cult. "Remember Guyana and Jim Jones, where everybody's drinking that Kool-Aid drink?" said Bock. "Well, that's exactly what these girls have had. Let's call it pimp juice. They've all had it and they can't see past either their affection for him or their fear for their trafficker."
-excerpt from Youth Radio
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